Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Josie's Giant Adventure
Dear All
Its boxing day and my last day in South America - boooo.
Santiago has been a lot of fun. The city is nice although doesn't quite have as much appeal as Buenos Aries. It has quite a lot of trees, flowers and insteresting buildings and there are 2 hills you can climb to get amazing views of the city. One has 2 swimming pools on it and a fenicular railway and cable car to get there. I spent a day at one of the swimming pools and another day wondering around the main parts of the town.
We spent the best part of one day preparing for our Christmas Day. We met 2 American's, Roxy and Konner, who were a lot of fun and had similar ideas to us about Christmas so we devised a plan between us. Plan A was to go to the beach with a picnic and booze. Plan B was that if it was cold, we'd go back to the swimming pool. Plan C was that if the swimming pools were shut, we'd spend the day in the hostel garden and we saw a paddling pool which would enhance plan C. We went on a mission to get bus tickets to the beach and to find a cool box to take our picnic in, then did a large supermarket shop and were well prepared before the hostel Christmas Eve party started. Christmas Eve is the main celebration day in Chile so our hostel did a meal with lots of booze and we ended up dancing and carrying on the party until far too late considering that we had to get a bus to the beach at 8.30am on Christmas Day. The meal was accompanied by a crazy mixture of alcohol - pisco sours, then red wine, then a baileys like cocktail then a daquari then champagne. So I felt really great on Christmas Day. I would say it was probably my all time worst hang over. I slept through my alarm as did Simon, but luckily Konner managed to wake us up and we had about 10 minutes to get ready.
We made it to the bus and did the 2 hour journey to Vina del Mar where the beach is. We got off the bus and it was freezing and raining. We went to check out the beach but decided we weren't going to hang around to see if the rain cleared and got back on the bus after the others had a turkey sandwich on the beach (I couldn't eat!). The swimming pool was open and we had a lovely day sitting in the sun, eating turkey sandwiches and other snacks and drinking beer and sangria (I managed a whole half glass of sangria and about 4 litres of water). It didn't really feel like Christmas day, but we had santa hats to keep reminding us and to give the people around us something to stare or laugh at. In the evening we saw the people we had been partying with the night before (many looking sheepish and a bit subdued) and a few of us went out to a bar after drinking some champagne. I didn't feel particularly well, but couldn't say no to going out when it was Christmas Day and my last night in South America. All in all it felt very strange that it was Christmas Day but it was a really good day with excellent company and lots of laughter which is what its all about.
While here we also went to a restaurant based on the book Like Water for Chocolate, and we went to a pub called the phone box where the entrance was an English phone box. I met lots of really nice and iteresting people at the hostel and it was a great way to round off South America.
See you in New Zealand.
Josiexx
- comments